


VEIL

by crixa



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Humanstuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-04-30 16:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5171624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crixa/pseuds/crixa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eleven children sign up for a study. A seemingly harmless venture turns into something quite different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://toystim.tumblr.com/post/133472199556/im-going-to-draw-them-all

Karkat stood outside the concrete building, wind tearing mercilessly at his clothes. He shifted uncomfortably, shouldered his bag, and turned his head to a sign above the entryway. "Vantas Ectobiological Institute and Laboratory," it read. His family had owned this facility, at least until ectobiology began to lose its merit as a legitimate field of study. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, the adolescent snorted. Ectobiology was a modern scientific hoax. The alchemy of the 21st century, not that alchemy itself hadn't made a sudden and allover horrifying lurch in and out of mainstream acceptance in the past fifty years. Karkat's elder brother, Kankri, had blamed under his breath the "anti-vaccinators and herbalists, but that's not to imply at all that those aren't absolutely legitimate and well-meaning viewpoints, only that they could be less hostile and maybe listen once in a while."  
As the entire “science” of ectobiology lost its credibility, funding to maintain the laboratory was lost, and the esteemed and wealthy Ampora family purchased the building. Nowadays, it had been entirely repurposed to the anthropological and psychological fields and extended outward in branches across the continental United States, rendering the original name nothing more than a reminiscent title.  
"Hey, KK. You still up for this?" The voice swept Karkat from his thoughts. He looked over his shoulder at his company.  
"Of course I'm 'up for this'," he grunted. It was Sollux, wearing mock-stereoscopic glasses and mismatched shoes, as per usual. His blond hair was considerably less greasy that it normally was, and his paper white skin glistened a little less. Well, Sollux's habits regarding personal hygiene weren't the best, but considering everything, Karkat was just satisfied to see him up and about. "Besides," he grumbled, "I'm already here anyway."  
"Fuck, something about it is just making me uneasy," Sollux said, partially to himself. He had a prominent lisp that the school speech therapists had failed to drill out of him, but at this point Karkat rarely acknowledged or even noticed it.  
"What the hell are you talking about?"  
Sollux sighed. "Never mind. How many other people are a part of this thing?"  
"Why would I know? I'm just hoping they're relatively competent, but I wouldn't be surprised if I've set my standards too high again," Karkat said with a huff, craning his neck to look for newcomers. Neither one wanted to enter the ominous building.  
As if on cue, an azure sedan pulled up alongside them, a blue-haired Latina girl bounding out. "Hey," she said, dragging a duffel bag from the car with one arm. She dropped it unceremoniously on the curd, hissed something to the person in the driver's seat, and slammed the door shut. The vehicle sped away, and the girl grinned. "So, is no one else here? Just you two boys?" She picked her bag up again.  
"It's just us so far," Sollux said.  
Karkat studied the girl as she set her bag on the ground and extended her arm to him. "I'm Vriska. Vriska Serket," she repeated her name slowly, as if he might mishear her. He furrowed his brow and reached to shake her hand, but before he could accept the handshake, Sollux cried out.  
"You're kidding me. You're fucking kidding me," he shrieked. "Serket. I didn't recognize you with the shitty blue dye." Sollux was fuming as he realized she evidently had not recognized him either. Vriska gawked at him for a moment.  
"Oh," she said slowly with a grin, "now this takes me back to the good old days, Sollux." The air was bitter and stale with tension.  
After a moment, Karkat jumped in. "Would it be too direct if I asked you two to bring me into the fucking loop? I know you’ve both hopped aboard the Fuck Karkat Express, but maybe, just this once, we could bring me up to speed."  
Vriska laughed, but Sollux spoke bitterly. "Remember Aradia?"  
It became clear to Karkat. As Vriska's hair whipped around her head in a violent gust of wind, he thought he might even remember the girl and her massive glasses.  
"You know," she said, as if she didn't hear, "Tavros is running the study with us. Looks like it'll be a real life reunion! If he ever gets his ass over her, that is." Sollux's face hadn't changed. "Listen, I'm sorry about your second grade girlfriend. But that was a long time ago, so give me a break."  
"Whatever." And with that, it was dismissed.  
Vriska appeared undeterred from continuing conversation. "So, you know, I got in a bit of an accident myself!" She batted at her jacket's empty left sleeve, grinning. “I like to consider it karmic retribution for my past evil deeds,” Vriska then said solemnly.  
Karkat stared at her. “Sounds terrible.”  
“It’s not so bad, you know,” she said, ignoring the sarcasm in his voice. “I could have two arms gone.”  
As she wrapped up this statement, a red-head with a dog rounded the corner. She wore red-tinted glasses, and her skin had a miniscule shade of grey to it. She stopped a few feet from the party. Drawing a deep breath through her nose, almost as if to smell them, she said loudly, “Am I interrupting something?”  
“No,” Vriska said, “Cute dog! Can I pet her?”  
The newcomer grinned, and then said in her too-loud voice, “He’s a guide dog, and generally we consider it rude to distract guide dogs from their all-important duties.”  
Vriska smiled back, and then patted the dog on the head. “So, what’s your name?”  
“His name’s Judge,” the girl said haughtily.  
“I meant your name.”  
“I’m Terezi.”


	2. Chapter 2

Karkat had been silent this whole time, as had Sollux. Now, they held a whispered conversation between each other.  
“The name sounds familiar,” Karkat said, forcing his abnormally loud voice down into something resembling a whisper.  
“Yeah, I was just thinking that,” Sollux responded, “I think we might have known her.”  
Terezi snorted. “I smell two others!”  
Karkat spoke up now. “Terezi, I’m Karkat, and this is Sollux. Do you recognize our names?” he said slowly.  
“Ah, yes,” she said mystically, “In a dream you came to me. You foresaw my accident and warned me I would soon be blind.”  
“Really?”  
“Fuck no,” she laughed, “Why would I know you?”  
“Never mind,” Karkat said quickly. “So, uh, are you in this study?”  
“Obviously.” She pursed her lips, then inhaled sharply in her characteristic way. Karkat shifted uncomfortably. She suddenly clapped her hands together and reinstated her toothy smile. “Well, should we go in?”  
“Probably,” said Sollux, making for the door. He opened it and, without holding the door open for anyone else, entered the Vantas Ectobiological Institute and Laboratory.  
The group found itself in a cozy lounge. Loveseats and couches littered the room haphazardly. In the various seats sat several others. A man in a white suit stood at the front of the room. Vriska didn’t hesitate in taking a seat next to a small boy in a wheelchair, but the rest of the newcomers were not so comfortable.  
The suited man spoke. “Welcome. We’ve chosen the eleven of you because of your diversity of experience. Please be informed of your right to exit the study at any time.” He passed out sheets of paper to each of the teens. “If you’ll read through that, we’ll begin at once.”  
He gave them several minutes to read the papers. Karkat skimmed his, then spent the rest of the time surveying his soon-to-be companions. In addition to the indigenous boy in a wheelchair next to Vriska, there were six others. He tried to inventory them. One girl with purple glasses and skin the color of coal. Next to her, an equally dark boy with a purple-striped scarf. He had a bleached streak through the front of his hair.  
On the other side of the room sat a large girl with a green coat and an even larger boy with greasy black hair. The girl had green eyes, while the boy wore dark sunglasses despite the fact that they were indoors.  
The final two were each on their own. A boy with purple eyes, an afro, and clown makeup on and an Arab girl with green hair. Karkat didn’t recognize anyone in the room but for Sollux. He guessed that was a good thing.  
Karkat was unaware that the man in the white suit had begun speaking again. “I am Dr. Scratch,” he said, “Now, this study, as you should all know, is designed to learn the true inner nature of teens. You will be left alone for a month exactly. You will be provided food through an automated system. Should there be an emergency, there are alarm pulls located in every room of the compound you will be isolated in. An assistant or I will be watching through cameras at any given time, and will come to your aid in such an emergency. Are there any questions?” he concluded  
A brief silence. Then, a few hands went up. Dr. Scratch nodded to the green-haired girl. She enunciated each word clearly. “What is the proper protocol for a fire?”  
“If the fire breaks out in your compound, pull the alarm. If it breaks out in another, an alarm will sound and the doors to the compound will open. You should exit the building immediately.”  
He looked around the room. “Any others?”   
No one seemed to want to speak. Finally, Vriska broke the silence. “What are we allowed to take with us?”  
“No weapons. Anything else is acceptable. My assistants will search each of your bags, however, to ensure nothing prohibited is brought in.”  
Sollux spoke now. “So, how do we leave this study? If we want to, you know.” A few people snickered at his lisp, but he pretended not to notice.  
“Pull the alarm switch,” said Dr. Scratch. He seemed to be getting annoyed with the questions. “Shall we continue on, then?”  
There was a murmur of agreement and some shuffling as everyone save the boy in the wheelchair stood up. They filed out of the room behind Dr. Scratch, no one wanting to be first in line. Karkat found himself near the rear next to the green-haired girl. She was much taller than him, although they had the same body type. Both were round on the edges, slightly curvy. Karkat looked up at the girl. She didn’t seem to notice.  
Behind them were a boy with a blonde streak through his hair and a girl with what seemed to be pink goggles on. Both were larger and taller than Karkat. He looked away quickly as the boy, the shorter of the two, looked at him, but he’d been caught looking.  
He tried to make conversation as if he’d been meaning to all along. “Any particular reason you’re here?” he almost shouted in his anxiety.  
Most of the people in the room turned to look at him. His brown skin flushed a deep red. The boy looked at him, then said in an accent, “Why do you want to know?”


	3. Chapter 3

Karkat was flustered for a moment. Then, he spoke. “No reason. I just thought you and your girlfriend here might have something better to do than some study.” All eyes were on him, and he was already making a bad first impression.  
The girl in the pink tank-top interjected here. “Oh, we’re not dating. We’re just friends. Best friends, right, Eridan?”  
“Yeah,” he said halfheartedly. “Anyway, what’s your point?” His accent was only slight, but it stood out to Karkat, having not heard it before.  
“Never mind,” he said, hoping to dismiss the conversation altogether.  
Eridan eyed him suspiciously, but the group was filing out of the door, so he followed suit. The girl with the green hair hung back with Karkat. “Smooth,” she said suddenly. Her voice was deep and clear.  
“Yeah.”  
“I’m Kanaya.”  
“Karkat.” Comparing himself to Kanaya, he was quite short. He came up to her shoulder. They walked into the next room side-by-side, following the rest of the group. The first person behind Dr. Scratch was the boy wearing clown makeup. He was carrying nothing. Scratch eyed him suspiciously. Behind him was the boy in the wheelchair. He pulled a bag off of the back of his wheelchair and handed it to Scratch’s assistant. She began rummaging through his bag. Sollux’s glasses glinted as if he might have recognized the woman.  
Once she had wrapped up and the small boy had recovered his bag, Vriska handed her her duffel bag. They repeated the procedure. They continued down the line. From Sollux’s bag, she confiscated a small pocketknife, winking and assuring him through a thick Japanese accent that he would get it back at the end of the study.  
When all of their bags had been inspected by the assistant, they were led into a small room with two doors including the one through which they had entered. They gathered in this room, waiting for Scratch to say something. Finally, he spoke.  
“You will enter through this door,” was all he said, opening the door opposite the one through which they had entered. “It will lock behind you.”  
Kanaya glanced down at Karkat. Then, she looked at Dr. Scratch and licked her black lipsticked lips. Sollux’s hands were sweating, but not as much as the massive, muscular boy in the blue tank-top.  
“You first, Tavros,” said Vriska, grinning. Tavros rolled into the room hesitantly. It was actually not a room, but a complex. The main room, into which they had entered, was bare-bones, with no decorations on the wall and no furniture. They queued in after the small boy named Tavros, examining their surroundings. Behind Karkat, the door was closed, and they were alone.  
“I believe introductions are in order,” Kanaya said calmly, but a few members of the group had already strayed, and the rest ignored her. “Or not.”   
Karkat paired up with Sollux again, planning to scope out the complex. They roamed aimlessly about the place. It consisted of five rooms: a dining room with a round table and eleven chairs, a room with eleven beds, and three other, empty rooms. Eventually, the pair wound up in the leftmost empty room. The only other one in the room was the boy with an afro and clown makeup, the one who had brought nothing with him.  
They spoke in lowered voices, eyeing the boy nervously. Karkat couldn’t tell what was off about him, but to Sollux it was obvious that he was just stoned out of his mind. “Hey, kid,” Sollux then said, tauntingly, “Did you forget your shit at home?”  
The boy’s lips moved but nothing came out at first. Then, “Worldly possessions ain’t all they’re made out to be, brother.” His eyes whirled around the room as if of their own accord before settling on Karkat. He stared at him unblinkingly, ignoring Karkat’s discomfort.  
Sollux shifted his weight to his other foot, then mumbled, “You get high one time and think you’re some sort of philosopher. Cool shit.”  
“Do we know you?” Karkat said suddenly and, as was usual for him, loudly. He seemed familiar.  
The boy with the afro scanned the room once more with flitting eyes. “The fates have mysterious ways to bring motherfuckers back together.”  
“I-What is that supposed to mean?”  
“Us motherfuckers only know each other if we know each other.”  
Karkat’s mouth was agape. “Gamzee?”  
He closed his eyes and chuckled silently. “I was thinking you’d up and remember.”  
Gamzee had been Karkat’s best friend before he had met Sollux. Gamzee was one of those suspected of killing Aradia before Vriska had finally confessed. Karkat had never believed Gamzee to be the perpetrator, but something about having his best friend accused of murder caused a rift in their relationship.  
But there he was, purple eyes, loud hair, and all. It caused something within Karkat to rise up, something between disgust and fondness. He hadn’t thought about Gamzee for the several years since they stopped talking. Gamzee had moved away and provided Karkat an opportunity to make more socially acceptable friends, the kind of friends that didn’t get accused of murder in the second grade.   
Now, several thoughts rushed through his mind. He had blamed Gamzee for his own wrongful accusation. He had cut ties with someone who did nothing wrong. His whole friendship with Sollux had been an act. He hated himself. He loathed himself. He had done everything wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

Or maybe he was just overreacting. He tapped the wall quietly with his index finger to ground himself. He tried to remember the ways to counter black-and-white thinking his therapist had taught him. He let the words die on his lips. “All mistakes are reparable. Nothing is absolute.” Then, “Feel-good lies are still lies.”  
Sollux and Gamzee were staring at him. Sollux took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses on his shirt. Gamzee continued staring unabashedly. It took Karkat a while to remember he was in a public place. He cast his eyes about the room, searching for anything to divert their attention. He briefly considered pointing out something miniscule and making a break for it, but the thought of spending a whole month in the company of people to whom he’d practically lied made him far more uncomfortable than he already was.  
Finally, he spoke. “Vriska was right, then. A real life reunion. Not for you, Sollux. You don’t know Gamzee, I guess. Although, you know that Tavros kid, so that kind of makes up for it.” Karkat shut his mouth before he got into too sore of a topic for Sollux. He noticed he tended to get carried away and rant. “Sorry.”  
Sollux’s jaw was set angrily. He was, of course, standing in front of the person he had believed for some period of time to be the murderer of someone very close to him. He turned ninety degrees on his heel and left the room, leaving Karkat and Gamzee alone together. Karkat looked into Gamzee’s light purple eyes, his most distinguishing feature.  
Karkat stood still for a while, meeting Gamzee’s gaze. Finally he spoke. “While I’d love to have a serious fucking nostalgic bonding session here, I think I’m going to go figure out what he’s taken issue with this time,” he said, as if he didn’t know. Gamzee said nothing, and Karkat chose to take it as approval.  
He hurried out of the room, taking a right turn into the hallway. He saw no sign of Sollux, but he did see Terezi and Vriska, recently acquainted, sitting in the hall chatting as if they were already best friends. He stomped past them, getting irritated quickly at their grins.  
“…actually dated him!” Vriska was saying, “Can you believe that?”  
“If you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have guessed it,” Terezi said, “You and knockoff Harry Potter.”  
Karkat’s mind immediately went to the boy with the blue-striped scarf and hipster frames. His appearance was reminiscent of Harry Potter, but could that be who they were talking about? He had stopped proceeding forward to listen to their conversation.  
Terezi sniffed the air in her menacing way. “Move along, Karkat,” she said loudly, making him jump.  
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you have a better sense of smell than Judge here,” Vriska said, giving Terezi’s guide dog a pat on the head. Terezi rolled her eyes behind her red glasses.  
Karkat still said nothing. Terezi and her dog seemed to be growing warier of him. Something in him hoped that she could not really smell him, and that Vriska could not really see him. Both seemed to him equally likely.  
“Well, McShouty?” Terezi said, “Are you going to go?”  
He opened his mouth, and then clamped it shut. She was beautiful in her own way. Spiky red hair, tiny pointed teeth, and lightly tanned skin apparently made for a dangerous combination. For multiple reasons, he needed to leave.  
“I guess I’ll just be on my merry fucking way,” he said before walking away in his characteristic stomp.   
Vriska grinned as he departed. “See? He’s a good sport.”  
Karkat ignored the comment as he turned into the room with eleven beds. He saw Sollux sitting on a bed in the far right corner. “Hey,” he said. “Sorry about back there. You know when shit starts coming out of my worthless mouth I can’t make it stop for a million bucks.”  
“It’s not you,” he responded. “It’s that Gamzee kid.”  
“Oh, come on, Sollux. You know as well as I fucking do that he didn’t have jack shit to do with Aradia’s…you know what.”  
“Not like I’m holding that against him,” Sollux grumbled, “You don’t know what it’s like. Whenever I think about her, about Aradia, I hear shit, dying people.”  
“Yeah, I know you’ve done an acrobatic fucking pirouette out of multiple psych wards,” Karkat said before breaking into a sick parody of Sollux’s voice, “Meds don’t help me; nothing helps me because I hear dead people.”  
Sollux stood up and rapped the back of his hand against Karkat’s forehead. “Piss off,” he lisped. “It’s not a damn joke. And they’re not dead people. They’re people about to die. I can’t do anything about it, either. Why would medication help with something that’s not psychological?”  
Karkat groaned. “Whatever, Sollux.”


End file.
